Happy airbnb Customers

 We were headed to Louisville for a friend/grad school classmate's graduation back in May and decided it was a good time to finally try out airbnb. We were quite pleased. I'm sure every experience is different and you have to do your research and choose carefully, but this house was adorable, clean, and perfectly restored with a private back yard even.

We never met the owner but she was available via phone and the process went smoothly. She was also sweet about us having small children, though I would always check on that because maybe not all owners would be. She did ask us to put breakables where the two-year old couldn't reach them…smart lady.

Airbnbn also has a great web site that's fun to navigate. I do recommend finding a listing like this one that looks like it's staged and not a primary residence. I just think that feels more like a hotel and less like you're staying in a stranger's house, full of someone else's weird clutter. 

And generally the pricing seems very reasonable. Here we were able to stay in a two-bedroom home in downtown Louisville for less than the price of one tiny hotel room. I'd say that's a win. No breakfast included but she did leave restaurant recommendations and stocked the house with snacks and drinks (sparkling water, yay!) and even included little organic milk cartons for the girls. I'm impressed by the small details.

I took Bry and the girls to some of my favorite spots on the Spalding campus, since it was their first time visiting. All of these photos are from my phone so the quality isn't so great.

We also had a lot of fun exploring Louisville. It's a very lively, historic, and quirky city with great food and culture. I like it a lot. 

This is Garage Bar. A popular evening hangout where things are made from old car parts…like these ping pong tables. Crazy.

And then there was Please & Thank You, a coffee shop in the neighborhood where we stayed. Supposedly they have "Lousiville's BEST Chocolate Chip Cookie," so of course we had to try one. It was pretty wonderful. 

What I was most impressed with though was how good they are to kids! They gave them balloons, and have toys, crayons and coloring pages, and a little vintage table and kitchen set.

That's Poppy across the cafe with her balloon, coloring her heart out at her very own table and quite happy to be Miss Independent. We enjoyed it as well and came back for a second visit the next day.

We thought about leaving the girls with someone for the weekend but I'm glad we brought them along and made a family trip of it. It's more work for sure, but worth it every now and then. 

Actually, while we were in Greece this summer I noticed how much Europeans include their kids. I loved seeing parents hiking with their children and cuddling their babies at restaurants at all hours of the night. The families seemed so relaxed, like they really enjoy their kids and would rather have them along instead of considering them an inconvenience. I told Bry I want to try to have more of that philosophy, not always calling the babysitters first and thinking we have to escape the little villains to have a good time. I think this does require a shift in mentality.